History
The pageant traces its roots back to the early 1920s and the "Cumorah Conference" of the Eastern States Mission, which was held each year annually in late July. Mission president B. H. Roberts would take some of his missionaries from New York City and travel to Palmyra and the recently acquired Smith Family Farm to celebrate Pioneer Day, acting out scenes from the Book of Mormon and LDS Church history as part of the commemoration. Over the next decade, the conference grew in duration and scale, and New York University English professor H. Wayne Driggs wrote the script America's Witness for Christ for the first official performance of the Hill Cumorah Pageant, which premiered on July 23, 1937.
The pageant advanced technologically over the next few decades, with stereophonic sound inventor Harvey Fletcher designing, building, and installing a five-track recording system; and Crawford Gates composing an original score for the pageant, which was recorded by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Utah Symphony Orchestra in 1957. In 1973, LDS Church president Harold B. Lee visited the pageant and called for a phasing out of full-time missionaries in the pageant. Consequently, the cast has since consisted entirely of regular church members. In 1988, Orson Scott Card was tasked with writing a new script. He was instructed to make the script "accessible to a modern audience, targeting the non-scripture-reading, non-Mormon young adult," which he did in part by making the new version approximately 40 minutes shorter than the previous one.
In 1991, local service organizations were invited to provide snacks and meals to pageant visitors. The offer was accepted by Rotary International, Lions Clubs International, and Kiwanis International, which have turned the pageant into their primary annual fund-raising event. In 1997, Donny Osmond left his starring role in the tour of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat to participate with his family in the cast of the pageant. Osmond played the role of the prophet Samuel the Lamanite.
The pageant was parodied during the opening of the satirical Broadway musical The Book of Mormon. Rodger Sorensen has served as the pageant's artistic director since 1998 and is the eighth to hold the position. During the 2012 season, the pageant held festivities and reunions in commemoration of its 75th anniversary.
Read more about this topic: Hill Cumorah Pageant
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